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Correct me if I'm wrong but alot of what is going on in the Bronx is community based isn't it? Like in Mott Haven and other areas from what I know is that development there is alot different than whats going on in some communities. I would definately agree and call that revitalization as opposed to gentrification.
i agree too....big difference in what is happening in the bronx as opposed to williamsburg or park slope.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
Yes it is majority community driven, but the revitalization is happening for current AND future residents (furture residents being middle class). However, the net effect is the same, as the area has become far more desireble, some residents have chosen to leave because they had to, or basically the cost vs benefit factor surpassed their own threshhold. So they moved out, and more often than not, a higher income person/family of color have moved in. The effect is the same, the intentions though were different than gentrification.
So as you see...my views are a little different, but ultimately, even with the community in the driver seat, the changes are happening all the same.
Yes it is majority community driven, but the revitalization is happening for current AND future residents (furture residents being middle class). However, the net effect is the same, as the area has become far more desireble, some residents have chosen to leave because they had to, or basically the cost vs benefit factor surpassed their own threshhold. So they moved out, and more often than not, a higher income person/family of color have moved in. The effect is the same, the intentions though were different than gentrification.
So as you see...my views are a little different, but ultimately, even with the community in the driver seat, the changes are happening all the same.
I think that type of change is alot easier to swallow, I mean if this was the trend city wide they would be able to find another area convenient for them and their needs. I mean, it is part of the diversification process. So I do agree with you in regards to that, just wish the same practices were adopted in other transitioning communities, the result would be more equitable in my opinion.
I am going to put in my own little two sent because I think I can understand both sides to a point. My mom came here as an immigrant and brought us for a better living had this not happened we would've gotten killed in war back home. My dad was to join us but the war took him so now she was stuck with 4 girls to care for. Our very first apartment was regular rent and back then I believe she was paying $600 for two big bed rooms in Manhattan, she worked constantly to afford the rent and this was back in the eighties. When rent started increasing she could no longer afford that apartment so she applied for section 8, my mom is not the type to ever get hand out we never ever had food stamp and it was 5 of us with only her working in hotels. We ended up in the Bronx, while you had your usual crack heads we were out at all hours and they never really bothered us. However it was scary coming home at night for my working mom and us kids coming home from after school programs. My mom didnt want us living there for long so she worked extra hard so we could get a better place. In this case most would say why doesnt she go to school, well with 4 kids and no husband and no help, she had to work over time, there was no time for school as soon as she got home she had to go back to work. There were many parents like my mom in our building working hard. Than there was those who lied to get on section 8 and lived there paying practically nothing and not doing anything. It took my mom 8 years and within that time she saved enough for a house however looking at homes in NY with a family of 5 prices was high there is no way she could carry a 200k mortgage at the time I was in college and I've done some traveling and knew that NY was not the only place to live and own a home. I researched online and told her there are other big cities may not be same but close and she could have a home and live in a nice safe area and not have to work as hard. She was able to find a nice home in PA and bought it and since she has moved she has a car and commute to work is great and she owns her home and can afford it.
As most say if you can survive in NY you can live any where. While I believe there are people that need help sometimes due to circumstances such as my own situation, but that help has to be limited. If you have 4 kids why are you still paying section 8 rent 40 years later? Or still living in projects 40 years later? Anything you do in this life is work and hard work and if you put in the time it pays off later. Great neighborhoods in this city single hard working parents trying to support their kids and you have gangs and crimes and all kinds of stuff, they living off the street and taking advantage. I knew a guy who lived in the projects with his parents was 40 years old still there, do they need that apartment more than family of 8 who is working and paying taxes? Can you still claim 40 year old child as dependent and hold on to that apartment? I think there are alot of people who takes advantage and makes it bad for the rest. Now as a home owner, I like a crime free neighborhood, and working classs people and whom ever else can afford it, whether Ivy League or millionaire Joe doesnt matter but it sure beats projects of people whom would remain there for so many years and thus pass it on. NY is full of all immigrants and no one is better and if you realize you can't afford it here there are many other places. We limit ourselves and than feel entitled. My mom is happy now she is alot calmer and doesnt have to work as hard now to keep standard of living.
What you've been parroting has been parroted for at least 50 years. New York should be Detroit by now if anything you predict were actually the case. I have no idea why you're dismissing the demographic changes
1. Wall Street did not go the way of the auto industry. In pretty much everything else, New York City went the way of Detroit. There were some other advantages: huge area (much of Queens and most of Staten Island is suburban sprawl), Parisian apartment buildings in Manhattan (it's a certain lifestyle old-time many New Yorkers were unwilling to abandon) and other such things. But yeah, the core "streetcar-suburb" NYC was almost as thoroughly abandoned by the white middle class as was Detroit. The overwhelming majority of large corporations fled NYC, just as they fled from Detroit (Wall Street, television and a handful of other 'glamour' industries have stayed, of course).
2. I'm not dismissing any demographic changes. I'm pointing them out. Statistically, there's no overall gentrification evident in New York City: only in certain neighborhoods, and they are offset by continuing middle class flight elsewhere (N. Bronx, N. Staten Island, etc.) The only statistically evident change both in NYC and the metro area is the continuing flight of Americans and their replacement with immigrants, mostly Latino.
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Need I remind you that New York City is just that, a major city. An urban center. NYC isn't the suburbs. Like ALL major cities, it populated by wealthy/poor/young professional/immigrants. Why does surprise you? Ever been to London? Tokyo? Paris? San Francisco? This isn't the 50s when middle-class families lived in the city.
And I'll repeat the ever-necessary Detroit comparison. What makes you think Wall Street, at whose tit NYC has suckled almost exclusively for decades now, will forever stay in NYC when nearly everyone who COULD leave, did? When the majority of hedge funds, with their much smaller workforce, have already relocated to Connecticut? When the majority of large commercial banks relocated elsewhere? When Goldman Sachs threatens to decamp for NJ/CT/North Carolina whenever NY state and NYC do not cough up major tax breaks? What makes you think i-banks will be a permanent fixture in Manhattan? Experience suggests that a city that's unlivable for the middle class soon becomes unlivable for the wealthy as well. Urban Tokyo and Paris are affluent. London has become much too similar to NYC demographically and economically. San Francisco is comparatively tiny.
The Detroit comparison needs to be brought up as frequently as possible. Only Wall Street payrolls and taxes prevent the immediate Detroitization of NYC. Detroit. Detroit.
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New York is much safer, wealthier and more gentrified than it was when the last wave of native NYers supposedly fleed to Alabama or South Carolina or wherever.
Hopefully the trend continues.
The last wave? You mean the several hundred thousand who have fled over the last 10 years and continue to flee today?
Anyway, New York is much 'wealthier' today again for pretty much one reason only: the tripling of Wall Street profits between the early 2000's and 2007 (sadly, much of the profit growth came from the derivatives market, i.e. gambling), to say nothing of the prodigious growth of Wall Street profits in the 80's and then again the 90's.
My only point is that NYC - and its metro area - are lousy places to live for the vast majority of Americans, and therefore all this talk of gentrification is bogus. There are not enough Wall Streeters to overcrowd even classic brownstone Brooklyn (which is still mostly ghetto).
I have no comment regarding most of your above statements Woozle, but I will disagree with your last statement: "My only point is that NYC - and its metro area - are lousy places to live for the vast majority of Americans, and therefore all this talk of gentrification is bogus. There are not enough Wall Streeters to overcrowd even classic brownstone Brooklyn (which is still mostly ghetto)."
NYC and the metro area IS a "lousy" place to live for the vast majority of Americans, but not because there is something inherently wrong with it, but because it does not jive as much with mainstream, wal-mart, mcmansion, car-centric, english-only/america is always right culture. The vast majority of Americans prize their American lifestyle and freedoms to carry guns to drop their kids off at school, the freedom to sit in 50 minutes of traffic to drive 10 miles to work, the freedom to buy a 4,000 sf tract home of 5 bed, 4 bath, 3 car garage for 2 parents and a small child, the freedom to live around people who are exactly like them and who know America is always right, and the freedom to gorge nonstop on Big Macs and hot dogs. After all, who would rather pay $2,000 to rent a small 1 bedroom condo when you can pay $1,400 for a giant home on 3 acres in Arkansas (the answer would be me by the way).
Since this lifestyle does not mesh with NYC living, NYC as a result, IS a lousy place to live for the vast majority of Americans. However, for a lot of NYers, the rest of America is a lousy place to live too.
As one of the said "yuppies" who has tastes far too advanced for middle-America (i.e. decent food I can actually consume without vomiting, upscale bars/shopping, and a very high saturation of like minded and well moneyed "yuppies"), I would would rather live in an apartment someplace shabby like Alphabet City in the East Village than a mansion someplace like Tennessee (or wherever the trendy refugee city is nowadays). Death would probably be a better option, really.
Carry on....
Yes, because that's what good life is all about: "upscale bar"-hopping with fellow suits. Sadly, however, most of your fellow suits will move to the suburbs when their wives become pregnant with their first child. And then they'll incessantly complain about the ridiculous commutes, taxes and overpriced real estate of metro NYC. Life seems great when you're young - regardless of whether you waste your youth at "upscale bars" or cheap wings-n-beer joints, fancy restaurants or the local teenage hangout that serves mediocre burgers.
You need to learn to separate your childless bar hopping days from the overall quality of life for ALL the residents of your city.
NYC and the metro area IS a "lousy" place to live for the vast majority of Americans, but not because there is something inherently wrong with it, but because it does not jive as much with mainstream, wal-mart, mcmansion, car-centric, english-only/america is always right culture.
Except that metro NYC is the birthplace of this culture (Levittowns, anyone?), New Jersey may be the birthplace of the McMansion, and most commuting New Yorkers, I suspect, would gladly give up their train passes for a chance to park their car in front of their suburban office building. That's why they're abandoning the metro NY area: they can't afford this lifestyle here.
But at least you agree with me. It *is* a lousy place to live for the vast majority of Americans.
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Since this lifestyle does not mesh with NYC living, NYC as a result, IS a lousy place to live for the vast majority of Americans. However, for a lot of NYers, the rest of America is a lousy place to live too.
Well, THAT is arguable. All we can say statistically, is that NYC is attracting immigrants. Almost two thirds of New Yorkers these days are immigrants and children of immigrants. But are they coming for the sake of the New York "lifestyle", or is it because they're seeking out their own ethnic communities and are merely putting up with New York City?
There is an obvious outflow of successful Asians from NYC to the suburbs. Successful Asians are some of the most eager buyers of McMansion-style houses. I suspect the inevitable flight to North Carolina/Georgia may be soon to follow.
Perhaps the car-centric McMansiony lifestyles are appealing to most people.. not just to "middle America".
Manhattan offers an alternatve - the "Parisian" lifestyle: perhaps the only city in America that replicates this experience with those pre-war apartment buildings that imitate Haussmanian Paris. It's a tiny part of the city, however.
Who mentioned anything about upscale bars as representative of anything..there are upscale bars everywhere you go. The values of America, as I described as above, are innately American, and I made no judgements about whether they were good or bad...but they are part of mainstream America. And as such, they don't jive with the NYC lifestyle...which does not make living in NYC lousy..it makes it incompatible with NYC living and as a result of that fact, NYC is lousy for the vast majority of Americans.
Regarding the outflow of any population of NYC, that has always been the case because NYC is a gateway city and always has been. What does that mean? It is an entry point for all types of people, who then disperse to the outerboroughs, metro area, or across the Americas..again, not necessarily because NYC is not for them, but because that is the nature of NYC as a gateway city, and how the entire country has been populated. And there is no doubt that the car-centric McMansion lifestyle is attractive to most people, it has been shoved down the throats as the "ideal" for 4 generations, and when you add the fact that human nature naturally tends towards greed and excess, well now you know why those 50 minute commutes to far flung suburbs are tolerated and "the norm."
And I do not speak for the suburbs of NJ, Long Island, Westchester etc..as these are all mostly higher-end representations of Podunk, Arkansas, with more ethnics of course. But at the end of the day, I could careless whether the vast majority of Americans think NYC is a lousy place to live and is not the topic of this thread..though to me thats a big sign that I am living in the right place. The point is, NYC being a lousy place to live to the vast majority of Americans has zero to do with whether it is actually a lousy place to live, and more to do with an incompatible lifestyle.
I don't necessarily agree that NYC is "terrible" for most people. Certainly many memories and warm families have settled in the less dense parts of Brooklyn, Queens and SI. What has happened is that urban life has been made far more difficult due to a couple things.
1) The rise of the criminal street culture, fueled by drugs and an entitlement culture that nutures beligerent attitudes towards education and productive activites. NY sustains this by maintaining a large welfare apparatus that makes this lifestyle more easily maintained than in other states w/ less generous social saftey nets. Only the increasingly militant attitude of the NYPD has truly been able to push back the affects of this culture.
2) This one is tangably related to #1, which is the extreme cost of taxes and regulation that makes new investment as well as day-to-day expenses far higher for both buisnesses and residents. Like Woozle points out, Wall St carries this city. Both in it's buisness taxes and in the income taxes of it's workers. However, NYers in alot of ways have no one but themselves to blame, since rather than try to wade into the unknown waters of free markets, it's better to maintain the vice grip of the state which is slowly but surley dragging the city down. I'm not saying their shouldn't be a saftey net, but explain to me why NYS spends 3x more per capita in Medicaid then the next highest spender (CA)? This also casues welfare migration, which is a huge negitive.
These two are the biggies. Failing schools and underinvested infastructure are other offshoots of the evolution of NY urban life.
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